Facebook to Combat Child Pornography with Microsoft PhotoDNA

Gadgetwise reports Facebok is about to announce a new effort to fight the distribution of child pornography using Microsoft technology:

Microsoft says it has refined a technology it created called PhotoDNA to identify the worst of these disturbing images — even if they are cropped or otherwise altered — and cull through large amounts of data quickly and accurately enough to police the world’s largest online services. And on Thursday, it will announce that Facebook will be the first service to join it in using the free technology, which Microsoft donated to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in December 2009.

Facebook, the largest photo-sharing site on the Internet, said it has begun to use PhotoDNA to hunt for several thousand registered illegal images among the 200 million images uploaded by its users each day. Facebook will host an online event at 3:00 p.m. (Eastern time) on Friday to explain the initiative, which follows its January move to join the center’s Amber Alert network.

They’re targeting only “the worst of the worst,” images of children under 12. No small crime:

PhotoDNA can currently search for about 10,000 images collected by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which has amassed 48 million images and videos depicting child exploitation since 2002, including 13 million in 2010 alone. The center has a Congressional mandate to act as a clearinghouse for this material, to help identify and aid victims and to assist law enforcement in investigations of perpetrators.

PhotoDNA can currently search for about 10,000 images collected by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which has amassed 48 million images and videos depicting child exploitation since 2002, including 13 million in 2010 alone. The center has a Congressional mandate to act as a clearinghouse for this material, to help identify and aid victims and to assist law enforcement in investigations of perpetrators.

This is the second Microsoft initiative in relation to these kinds of investigations, and it shows their willingness to help at no cost to the agencies involved in investigating these types of crimes. However, as is always the case, the resources available to deal with these crimes fall way behind the need. CP investigations don’t lack and have never lacked targets, just the resources to deal with the identified targets. No different really, than all of the backed up dna samples lying around untested in police agencies everywhere due to lack of funding and/or lab resources.